Obligatory Devotion
by crayonboxromance
Summary: Gildar is called to help to attend to Lady Dis during her second birth. What she doesn't realise is that she's about sign away her life to the youngest of the Line of Durin.
1. Twenty Three, Five, Null

_So I decided to introduce some Kili lovin' to my repertoire. I'm a bit stuck on the Fili one since I'm still pretty clueless as to what's going on. _

_So here's to keep my Hobbit Muses alive whilst slowly updating **Debts Repaid**!_

_I hope you all enjoy!_

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It wasn't the worst fate in the world to watch the love of your life court someone else when you knew it wouldn't last. This is what Gildar had told her brother Bildar when he'd expressed concern over her new forlornness. Quietness from Gildar was nothing new since she was a studious girl and very devoted to her work. She would one day become a master jeweller and everyone expected her to move, and be welcomed, to the Iron Hills to study under a jeweller there. The Ered Luin settlement was not poor thanks to their hard-working royalty and people but neither could it truly support her obvious talent. They were comfortable but her family could ill afford giving her the advanced materials she required for her skill level. When she moved Bildar, a fine warrior, and his wife would accompany her so that she be protected on the road. The siblings were very close despite the eighty year gap between them. Gildar knew exactly when Bildar's facial expressions by heart and Bildar knew Gildar's silences as old, very familiar friends. Now her quiet was forlorn but not quite as much as he thought it would be considering the person she'd decided to devote her life to was courting someone else.

Long ago when Gildar was a dwarfling of three and twenty, a mature and serious young thing even then, she had been sent to aid her father who was attending Lady Dis as she gave birth to her second child. Prince Fili waited outside with a white face making a child's vow to hate the being who was making his fearless, beloved mother scream so. Thorin and Filri, uncle and father both, ignored the outburst in favour of anxious pacing. Gildar, waddling past with the water her father had asked for, hushed him softly and informed him that now he had a duty as an older brother to love and protect the new child. Bildar had said this to her a long time ago when she'd asked why he liked her. When she returned from giving her mother the water Fili's face had changed from determined to hate to determined to love whoever was hurting his mother even if he didn't want to.

"You help Gildar." Fili had grabbed her hand and pleaded in his broken Westron. The poor dwarfling looked terrified of the sudden responsibility of being a big brother that she couldn't help but feel a little guilty. All she'd wanted to do was stop him from hating his new sibling without just cause. It also helped that she was awfully fond of the ball of energy princeling who she'd also helped to welcome into the world alongside her father. Gildar held no interesting in midwifery but was determined to know about everything there was to being a girl. Childbirth included.

"Just as I grew to love and protect you," she had promised this last year when he'd been stuck in a bush that seemed to tighten around him the more he wriggled and she had coaxed him out, "I will do the same for your brother." She was pretty sure that this wasn't quite what he asked but he appeared to be placated all the same. Gildar had been watching Fili grow up and, despite her young age, understood what was to be expected of them. As children of a similar age and with her family being of nobility, however minor, they would play together and grow up together. Maybe, just maybe, they would court or at least become shield-siblings. Being a shield-sibling was like an informal adoption into the family with the vow that they would protect each other until death. This didn't seem like a bad fate at all to Gildar so she went with it. Fili, pleased with what had been said between them, took it upon himself to try and get some sleep. Thorin turned to him to tell him as such after Gildar's father had popped his head out to say it might be a few more hours only to find that he had already hunkered down for the night. His golden head was resting in Gildar's lap and she stroked his burgeoning whiskers to help him sleep. Her own whiskers were filling out nicely and he'd often expressed jealousy over it. Thorin continued with his pacing but not before ruffling Gildar's red, red hair affectionately.

It was four hours later when a loud, loud cry roused everyone from their slumbering. Filri jumped up from his slump by the door immediately but was pushed back out roughly when he tried to barge in, "she needs time to make rest for a moment." Gildar's father had said which was code for getting her relaxed and tidy enough to welcome them in. Also the new baby would have to be bathed and have a minute with its mother before the father was allowed to handle it. They were informed that the new child was a boy and to be named Kili since it was the mother who chose the names of her children and Gildar's father popped his head back in. Fili finally roused from his sleep as his father picked him up by the waist with his only arm and nuzzled happily into his golden hair, the hair he shared with his father.

"You have a brother Fili!" Filri whispered. For a while he had thought that he could not have children, that the Lady Dis might be too repulsed by his lack of arm when he returned from the Battle of Azanulbizar or the fact that he could no longer walk without aid from a cane or his wife. But Dis hadn't cared and now two children were born and healthy sons no less, "his name is Kili!"

"Kili and Fili!" Fili chanted repeatedly and with great excitement, recovered from his previous anxiety. Gildar simply smiled along with the joy practically radiating from the three men, Thorin's happiness a much quieter beast, and waited to be called into the room. Finally they were summoned in and they filed in neatly. Fili was perched on Filri's shoulders as he hobbled in on his cane. Thorin strode in with purpose and a smile whilst Gildar waddled in as excited to see the new boy as anyone else and stood by her father. It was an hour later when the baby had been passed around that both Fili and Gildar were allowed up on the bed to see him. Quickly they scrambled up and perched on their knees until Thorin gently adjusted them so that they could better support holding the baby. When Kili was finally in their arms with his dark blue eyes, although she suspected that would change since all babies were born with dark blue eyes, and his tiny fists grabbed both Fili's and her hair Gildar decided there and then that she had been right before. She would grow up loving and protecting this boy. From that day on her life was dedicated to these two boys.

It would be much later that Gildar would actually lose her heart to the youngest prince but that is an entirely different tale.


	2. Twenty Eight, Ten, Five

_I'm so glad you guys are liking this!_

_**LalaithElerrina**_

_**vilevillain**_

_**Kitty in a Cornfield**_

_**Lovely **(I will definitely check out those books! Thank you for your approval. I'm aiming towards author fun times purely cos I already have a book ready to go ;)_

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"Gilly! Gilly!" A very young voice squealed loudly as Gildar sat with Ori teaching him and an older boy more towards her age called Floki their Cirth runes. The young Durin lamented not being able to learn with their 'super best friend' Gilly but as royalty they were expected to learn with a Grand Master. Fili's determination turned fear that he might not love his little brother was entirely unfounded. Only a few months after his birth Fili had taken to carrying Kili around and showing him off. He'd gripped Kili tightly around the chest area so that his pudgy little baby arms stuck out in front of him. Everyone thought it was super sweet they way they trotted around together including Gilly who was never allowed to hold him until he was older. Fili was very territorial. Filri and Thorin worried constantly about Fili accidentally dropping his little brother but they needn't have since no such accident ever occurred. As the pair grew they became closer, much closer than Gildar and Bildar, more like twins than normal siblings. Sometimes they even deigned to include Gildar in their secrets and games. Only when Kili was older of course as Fili was loath to share his brother's company with anyone else for the first few years. The three of them were destined to be friends forever it had been decided and not by them. Thorin, Dis and Filri had decided this only the night before when the trio had been discovered asleep in a huddle by the front door, waiting for Thorin to return from his hunting trip. It had been Filri who allowed them to wait. He understood with depressing clarity that Thorin was the boy's masterful father figure whilst he shared the mother figure with Dis. His wonderful wife was pure strength, fierceness and an iron rod of discipline but he was the stay-at-home soft touch who handled the politics of running a royal household. Filri had allowed for Fili and Kili to wait, fully intending to move them to bed as well as he could when they inevitably fell asleep. However he'd fallen asleep much to Dis's fond amusement and it was Gildar, who was visiting with her mother, who had taken three blankets and pillows to them. She settled down to wait with them after swaddling all three with blankets until she too fell asleep. When Thorin returned, almost tripping over the blanketed lump of dwarflings, all three adults laughed together, since Gildar's mother had returned home happy to leave her daughter in Dis and Filri's care. They all looked down on the three sleeping beauties and decided that this was the way it would be. They would enliven the serious Gilly's life with their adventures and misadventures but she would ultimately end up looking after all of them. The boys would grow to become unbearably spoilt.

"Yes Kili?" Gilly finally responds, refusing to be distracted from the task at hand. Bildar was paying her so that he could go off chasing the she-dwarf he was hoping to court, a beautiful woman with great talent. She was greatly sought after apparently so Baldir had told his younger sister that he was 'playing the long game', whatever that meant. Their parents were a bit put out that he wasn't choosing the noble woman they'd chosen but they were content with the fact that he was choosing a _woman_. This ensured the survival of their bloodline which was all the more important after the Smaug attack. Also it was fast becoming clear that Gildar would become a Grand Master in whatever her chosen skill was with little mind for anything else unless one of the young princes decided to court her. None minded which one of course since both their beards were coming through just fine which is a sure sign of fertility amongst dwarrows.

"You must play!" Fili yelled excitedly, "Ori and Floki too." He added less eagerly but he understood that dragging _everyone_ away from their work would ensure their favourite playmate's attendance. Both students brightened immediately. They'd been studying for three hours and the break would be welcome. Gilly bit her lip but secretly her decision was already made. Kili clambered onto her lap and pulled her new braid. There hung a memory bead for the first time she'd gone abroad. It had only been to Bree and back to buy something with her father but it had been her very first time leaving Ered Luin. The boys were very jealous.

"One day Gil we be adventure," still at a very tender age Kili hadn't quite grasped verbs yet, "and have beads." He gave her hair another decisive yank and she slapped his hand away with a start. A lot of strength from the young one yet even if he had only just learnt to walk without falling over. Still it was adorable. Fili had been much the same and it had received just the same reaction from her. Cooing behind her hand although never to their faces, they had the Durin pride.

"Kili I'm sure that one day you will have a great many beads, much more than I. But for now I'm still older and can still beat you at any game." The reaction was immediate. Both Durin boys faces contorted in to a look of sheer incredulity that she could beat them. Instantly Kili was bouncing on her lap incandescent with his child rage demanding that she take it back. Fili tried to push Kili off so that he could clamber up and trade angry words with her. Floki smirked since he knew exactly what Gildar was doing. It would soon be time for theirs and Ori's naps anyway so she was trying to make them expend as much energy as possible. Ori was very easy to get to sleep. You just had to read him a story and stroke his hair. However the boys would get jealous of the attention, demand all of hers and wouldn't sleep until she napped with them. Gildar had been out of nap time for some ten years but she loved it and used them as an excuse. It worked for all. This time however Floki had asked her permission to walk with her about the settlement, just them two. Both were naturally too young for courting but 'practising' as it were was allowed.

As the four of them ran off to play games in time to settle down for nap time, none of the younger ones knowing that Gilly wouldn't be joining them for the first time ever, Floki couldn't help but muse after them. The four of their lives were so interconnected he wondered how they'd react when Gildar started courting for real.


End file.
